If we survive as a civilization for two more decades it will be because, in large measure, of these men and women and because of men and women like them.

Courageously fighting PC, leftism, eco-alarmism, jihadism - unafraid of the totalitarians of the Left or Islam.

The leftists who now run the movie studios, the networks (save Fox!), the publishing companies, and curate the galleries and the museums and dominate college faculties are the New Establishment. Either their time will soon be up, or it's over for us all.

“The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere — thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States. Just as it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees, neither should we miss the climate for the snowstorm.”

… since 2001 there has been less water vapor in a narrow, lower band of the stratosphere thanks to cooler temperatures in the tropopause, and that may just be holding back global warming at ground level, according to new research published online in Science

“We found that there was a surface temperature impact due to changes in water vapor in a fairly narrow region of the stratosphere,” explains research meteorologist Karen Rosenlof of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Aeronomy Laboratory, one of the authors of the study. “The reason for the water vapor change is the temperature drop at the interface between the troposphere and the stratosphere over the tropics. What we don’t know is why the temperature dropped.”

That temperature does seem to correlate, however, to sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific that, of course, follow El Niño–La Niña cycles, along with other trends.

A new El Niño cycle—warmer surface waters—began last summer, which may mean that stratospheric water levels could change again.

So this effect could either be the result of natural variability in Earth’s climate, or yet another effect of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases like water vapor trapping more heat and thus warming sea-surface temperatures.

All told, stratospheric water vapor declined by 10 percent since 2000, based on satellite and balloon measurements, yet that was enough to appreciably affect temperatures at ground level according to climate models.

“Reduce the water vapor and you have less long-wave radiation coming back down to warm the troposphere,” Rosenlof says.

Conversely, an apparent increase in water vapor in this region in the 1980s and 1990s exacerbated global warming.

THERE IS LESS H20 IN THE AIR, NOT MORE; THEREFORE GORE’S EXCUSE IS WRONG.

THE LACK OF SUNSPOT ACTIVITY AND THE EL NINO ARE WHAT'S DRIVING THIS WINTER'S WEATHER, NOT ATMOSPHERIC CO2 OR HIGHER ATMOSPHERIC H2O LEVELS.

THE AGW ALARMISTS/CO2OPHOBES INCORRECTLY PREDICTED THAT THIS WINTER WOULD BE MILD.

BUT INTELLECTUALLY HONEST AND APOLITICAL CLIMATE SCIENTISTS - WHO BELIEVE THE SUN IS MORE POWERFUL CAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE THAN CO2 - PREDICTED IT CORRECTLY AND SAID IT WOULD BE A COLD AND SNOWY ONE.

A century of whaling may have released more than 100 million tonnes - or a large forest's worth - of carbon into the atmosphere, scientists say.

Whales store carbon within their huge bodies and when they are killed, much of this carbon can be released.

US scientists revealed their estimate of carbon released by whaling at a major ocean sciences meeting in the US.

Dr Andrew Pershing from the University of Maine described whales as the "forests of the ocean".

Dr Pershing and his colleagues from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute calculated the annual carbon-storing capacity of whales as they grew.

"Whales, like any animal or plant on the planet, are made out of a lot of carbon," he said.

"And when you kill and remove a whale from the ocean, that's removing carbon from this storage system and possibly sending it into the atmosphere."

He pointed out that, particularly in the early days of whaling, the animals were a source of lamp oil, which was burned, releasing the carbon directly into the air.

"And this marine system is unique because when whales die [naturally], their bodies sink, so they take that carbon down to the bottom of the ocean.

"If they die where it's deep enough, it will be [stored] out of the atmosphere perhaps for hundreds of years."

Ocean trees

In their initial calculations, the team worked out that 100 years of whaling had released an amount of carbon equivalent to burning 130,000 sq km of temperate forests, or to driving 128,000 Humvees continuously for 100 years.

The EU-fanatics rammed through the Lisbon Treaty when their efforts to pass the EU Constitution failed.

The leftist elites - the "educated class" the "political class" - ignored the will of people and rammed it through.

The Danes, the Irish, the French - everyone who had a chance to vote on it voted NO, and yet the elites running the EUSSR ignored them all. PM Brown promised a referendum to the British people, but reneged.

It's all fundamentally anti-democratic.

The leftist elites care not one whit.

Obama and his comrades feel the same way about Obamacare as the Eu-elite felt about the Lisbon treaty AKA the EU Constitution.

They will ram it through one way or another.

Leftists have a greater attachment to the "utopianistic" goals, than to democracy as as end in itself.

This is why the left lies so easily and so frequently, and why they have no compunction about announcing that they think it's fine to steal elections and... why the left committed most of the genocide in the last century.

The left feels that they have all then answers and can run your life better than you can and the world better than "the people", it's why the left is willing to do just about anything to make it so.

The ONLY legal and peaceful recourse we THE PEOPLE have is to punish them this November.

Vote every single solitary Democrat and liberal out of office in every election at every level - state, local, and federal.

Liberalism, atheism linked to IQ — (CNN) — Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds. — Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ …

NORMAN PODHORETZ, IRVING KRISTOL, DAVID HOROWITZ, AND ME - AND COUNTLESS OTHER LEFTISTS WHO SAW THE LIGHT AND BECAME CONSERVATIVES.

WE DIDN'T BECOME DUMBER; WE FREED OURSELVES FROM LEFTIST SHACKLES.

INTELLIGENT PEOPLE WHO REMAIN LEFTISTS DO IT ONE WAY: BY IGNORING THE RIGHT.

THEY'RE LIKE JURISTS WHO ONLY LISTEN TO ONE SIDE OF A CRIMINAL CASE, BUT WHO THINK THEY HAVE HEARD ENOUGH TO VOTE FOR CONVICTION OR EXONERATION.

MORE OFTEN THAN NOT - WHEN THEY HEAR AN OPPOSING VIEW FROM THE RIGHT, THEY DECLINE INTO NEAR VIOLENT COGNITIVE DISSONANCE AND ATTACK ANY SOURCE WHICH OFFERS PROOF THAT THEIR SIDE IS WRONG.

THIS IS WHY THEY ARE AT WAR WITH FOX NEWS: THEY FEAR THAT IF MORE LEFTISTS START TO LISTEN TO THE OTHER SIDE - TO BOTH SIDES - THAT THEY WILL ABANDON LEFTISM AND GET OFF THE PLANTATION.

THEY'RE RIGHT.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE SMART TO HAVE AN OPINION, AND MANY SMART PEOPLE HAVE MANY OPINIONS WHICH ARE WRONG - BECAUSE THEY'RE BASED ON PREMISES AND PRESUPPOSITION WHICH ARE WRONG AND WHICH THEY DO NOT QUESTION.

LIKE THE EFFICACY OF SOCIALISM AND STATE-MANDATED/COMMAND ECONOMIES.

THEY FAIL EVERYWHERE; THEY ARE ALWAYS OUT-PERFORMED BY PRIVATE ENTERPRISES -YET LEFTISTS REFUSE TO ADMIT THIS.

THEY REFUSE TO ADMIT THAT VIETNAM WAR WAS WON UNTIL THE DEMOCRATIC DOVES OF CONGRESS PULLED THE PLUG ON THE SVG.

THEY REFUSE TO ADMIT AGW IS A HOAX.

THEY REFUSE TO ADMIT CUTTING TAXES IS GOOD FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH.

THEY REFUSE TO ADMIT THAT A FETUS IS A HUMAN BEING.

AND SO ON.

ONLY BY REFUSING TO ACCEPT REALITY AND FALLING BACK ON TIRED OLD SHIBBOLETHS CAN LEFTISTS REMAIN LEFTISTS.

AND INTELLIGENT PEOPLE CAN GO INTO DENIAL AS EASILY AS A DUMMIES.

QUITE FRANKLY, INTELLIGENT PEOPLE MAY FALL INTO DENIAL MORE EASILY AND MORE FREQUENTLY THAN ANYONE ELSE.

ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE LEFTISTS.

CUZ THEY NEED TO: THEIR IDENTITIES DEPEND ON IT.

As for atheism... many intelligent people believe in the big bang, or "string theory" or black-energy/black-matter - though few can explain it. They accept it as an article of faith in the Church of Atheism and as a canon of the "Councils of Higher Education".

Structurally, it is NO DIFFERENT than how many other people accept it as an act of faith that God was the First Cause, and is aware of each and loves and every soul.

FAITH.

Plenty of high IQ people have faith in God.To argue otherwise is to be a bigot.

An independent board of scientists will be appointed to review the workings of the world’s top climate science panel, which has faced recriminations over inaccuracies in a 2007 report, a United Nations environmental spokesman said Friday.

The board’s work will be part of a broader review of the body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program, who spoke on the sidelines of an international meeting of environment ministers here.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been under fire since it was pointed out that the 2007 report included a prediction that Himalayan glaciers would vanish by 2035, although there is no scientific consensus to that effect.

IF THEY REALLY APPOINT AN INDEPENDENT CREW, THEN THIS IS ANOTHER NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF AGW ALARMISM.

BTW: THIS SHOULD PROVE TO EVERYONE THAT THE DOUBTS RAISED BY THE SKEPTICS WERE VERY VERY SERIOUS - AND THAT THE SCIENCE IS FAR FROM SETTLED.

BOTTOME-LINE: Not only is the science NOT settled, much of the so-called "science" used by the alarmists was fraudulent, and when outside scientists saw that the CRU conslusions didn't match their own they asked for the raw sata to test the AGW conclusions, they were rebuffed.

The Bush administration got a lot of things wrong – but at least they usually had some idea of who America’s adversaries were and who America’s friends were. For example, Bush’s policy of maintaining the special relationship with Britain was a simple recognition of the close bonds of alliance, friendship and interests that the British and Americans have had since World War I.

In contrast, Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are apparently clueless about some of the most basic aspects of foreign policy: supporting one’s friends and fencing in one’s adversaries.

The declaration of neutrality on the issue of the sovereignty of the Falklands issued by the US State Department is clear proof of the uselessness of the Obama administration.

...this mess is just typical of the drift in US foreign policy – if one can say that it even HAS a coherent foreign policy these days.

As I said, at the core of the problem is a simple inability to recognise and support our friends over adversaries. In his first year in office Obama made numerous apologies for America’s past to the Third World, he effusively greeted the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, he bowed low to the Saudi ruler, and called for a “reset” of relations with Russia – all the while implying that America was at fault for all these problems.

At the same time he rudely undermined the security of America’s Eastern European allies by cancelling the ballistic missile defence with no notice and no prior discussion, he failed to push for a free trade agreement with Colombia – America’s strongest ally in South America – and he supported Chavez’s allies when they tried (luckily unsuccessfully) to unseat a democratic and pro-US government in Honduras.

...On assuming office, Obama’s vision of foreign policy was simple: he would repudiate past American policies and the whole world would melt before the president’s charm.

The administration somehow thought that we really didn’t have enemies with agendas completely hostile to our own – there were just countries that had become offended by US actions and they would happily cooperate with America as soon as the evil Republicans were gone.

“Let’s set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace–and you can have it in the next second–surrender.

Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this,

but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement,

and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face–

that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender.

If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand–the ultimatum.

And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for “peace at any price” or “better Red than dead,” or as one commentator put it, he would rather “live on his knees than die on his feet.”

And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us.

You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery.

If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin–just in the face of this enemy?

Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs?

Should Christ have refused the cross?

Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world?

The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain.

Where, then, is the road to peace?

Well, it’s a simple answer after all.

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, “There is a price we will not pay.” There is a point beyond which they must not advance.

REAGAN WAS RIGHT: APPEASING THE ENEMY ONLY ENCOURAGES THEM: THEY WILL MAKE MORE DEMANDS AND USE MORE VIOLENCE.

POLITIKEN HAS NOT ONLY SHAMED THEMSELVES, THEY HAVE MADE EVERY JOURNALIST EVERYWHERE AND ALL FREEDOM AND LIBERTY LOVING PEOPLE LESS SAFE.

There’s a new paper out by Dr. Edward Long that does some interesting comparisons to NCDC’s raw data (prior to adjustments) that compares rural and urban station data, both raw and adjusted in the CONUS.

The paper is titled Contiguous U.S. Temperature Trends Using NCDC Raw and Adjusted Data for One-Per-State Rural and Urban Station Sets. In it, Dr. Edward Long states:

“The problem would seem to be the methodologies engendered in treatment for a mix of urban and rural locations; that the ‘adjustment’ protocol appears to accent to a warming effect rather than eliminate it. This, if correct, leaves serious doubt for whether the rate of increase in temperature found from the adjusted data is due to natural warming trends or warming because of another reason, such as erroneous consideration of the effects of urban warming.”

Here is the comparison of raw rural and urban data:

And here is the comparison of adjusted rural and urban data:

Note that even adjusted urban data has as much as a 0.2 offset from adjusted rural data.

Dr. Long suggests that NCDC’s adjustments eradicated the difference between rural and urban environments, thus hiding urban heating. The consequence:

“…is a five-fold increase in the rural temperature rate of increase and a slight decrease in the rate of increase of the urban temperature.”

The analysis concludes that NCDC “…has taken liberty to alter the actual rural measured values”.

AGW = BS.

ANTHROPOGENIC CLIMATE CHANGE ALARMISTS SHOULD SHUT THE EFF UP.

THEY HAVE CHERRY-PICKED DATA, AND DISTORTED DATA.

ALL THE CHERRY-PICKING AND DISTORTING ALWAYS MADE IT SEEM WARMER THAN IT ACTUALLY WAS.

Sales of existing home in January fell 7.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.05 million, according to a report by the National Association of Realtors. Analysts had expected an increase of 0.9 percent.Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the realtors group, called the report “not encouraging” and said in a statement that it “raises concern about the strength of the recovery.”

... Worries that the housing market could slip into another downturn resurfaced this week in the wake of several disappointing reports. Applications for mortgages dropped to the lowest level in 13 years last week. Sales of new homes fell to the lowest level since record-keeping began in 1963.

OBAMACARE WON'T FIX THIS - AND NEITHER WILL RAIDING TAXES ON THE WEALTHY.

ONE THING WILL - IMMEDIATELY: AN ACROSS THE BOARD TAX CUT: A PAYROLL TAX HOLIDAY FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR!

Autism was first identified in 1943 in an obscure medical journal. Since then it has become a frighteningly common affliction, with the Centers for Disease Control reporting recently that autism disorders now affect almost 1 percent of children.

... Yet they constitute a huge national health burden, and suspicions are growing that one culprit may be chemicals in the environment. An article in a forthcoming issue of a peer-reviewed medical journal, Current Opinion in Pediatrics, just posted online, makes this explicit.

The article cites “historically important, proof-of-concept studies that specifically link autism to environmental exposures experienced prenatally.” It adds that the “likelihood is high” that many chemicals “have potential to cause injury to the developing brain and to produce neurodevelopmental disorders.”

The author is not a granola-munching crank but Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, professor of pediatrics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and chairman of the school’s department of preventive medicine. While his article is full of cautionary language, Dr. Landrigan told me that he is increasingly confident that autism and other ailments are, in part, the result of the impact of environmental chemicals on the brain as it is being formed.

“The crux of this is brain development,” he said. “If babies are exposed in the womb or shortly after birth to chemicals that interfere with brain development, the consequences last a lifetime.”

Concern about toxins in the environment used to be a fringe view. But alarm has moved into the medical mainstream. Toxicologists, endocrinologists and oncologists seem to be the most concerned.

One uncertainty is to what extent the reported increases in autism simply reflect a more common diagnosis of what might previously have been called mental retardation. There are genetic components to autism (identical twins are more likely to share autism than fraternal twins), but genetics explains only about one-quarter of autism cases.

Suspicions of toxins arise partly because studies have found that disproportionate shares of children develop autism after they are exposed in the womb to medications such as thalidomide (a sedative), misoprostol (ulcer medicine) and valproic acid (anticonvulsant). Of children born to women who took valproic acid early in pregnancy, 11 percent were autistic. In each case, fetuses seem most vulnerable to these drugs in the first trimester of pregnancy, sometimes just a few weeks after conception.

So as we try to improve our health care, it’s also prudent to curb the risks from the chemicals that envelop us. Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey is drafting much-needed legislation that would strengthen the Toxic Substances Control Act

My Thursday column argues that as long as we’re looking at reforming the clinical health system, we should also examine public health interventions — including greater scrutiny of chemicals that may be having harmful effects on us. In particular, I look at autism (for more information about autism, check out the site of the Autism Society of America).

I chose autism as my focus because of a new, peer-reviewed article in a pediatric journal that examines environmental causes. The article is still forthcoming in print but is on line (behind a pay wall) here. And it’s only the latest in a torrent of research findings suggesting harmful effects of various chemicals that are routinely detected in human blood, urine and breast milk. There is no escaping the chemicals of modern life.

Dr. Philip Landrigan uses the article to argue for a much more rigorous examination of chemicals to determine which ones do indeed cause damage to the developing brain.

NONSENSE!

This environmental toxin theory doesn't pass the smell test.

We're supposed to believe that toxins so common we're all exposed to them effect and harm only1% of the fetuses!?

This is barely a notch above the MMR theory.

Do you really want to protect fetuses?

Then stop worrying about toxins and stop abortions.

Sheesh.

FROM A COMMENTER AT KRISTOF'S BLOG:

Paul

Cambridge, Mass.

February 25th, 2010

12:31 pm

I'm a big fan of Nicholas, and I believe that environmental toxins may well contribute to causing autism. But am compelled to clarify 2 of Nicholas' statements.

First, the pediatric journal article that he mentions is not "the latest in a torrent of research findings." The article is an opinion piece; it contains no new research findings of any sort.

Second, Nicholas asserts that "genetics explains only about one-quarter of autism cases." This assertion is, at best, an inappropriately certain misinterpretation of existing data. It would be more accurate to say that "some believe that genetics explain about one-quarter of autism cases." We just don't know yet.

WHETHER ON TORTURE OR AGW OR HEALTHCARE: THE LEFT WILL LIE, CHEAT AND DISTORT TO ACHIEVE THEIR LEFTIST "UTOPIANISTIC" GOALS.

THEY WILL EVEN COMMIT GENOCIDE - AND HAVE DONE SO REPEATEDLY.

KRISTOF IS NO EXCEPTION.

HE'D RATHER THE STATE CLAMPED DOWN ON THE USE AND MANUFACTURE OF BENEFICIAL CHEMICALS - (AS HE WOULD HAVE THE STATE DO ON CO2!) - THAN SAVE REAL LIVES BY FINDING MORE WAYS TO DECREASE ABORTIONS.

THIS WOULD ACHIEVE THE GREATEST GOOD FOR THE GREATEST NUMBER OF PEOPLE: MORE HUMANS ARE ABORTED THAN GET AUTISM.

William Francis Buckley (May 30, 1928 - June 3, 1985) was a United States Army officer and a Paramilitary Operations Officer in the Special Activities Division. He died on or around June 3, 1985 after being held captive by members of Hezbollah. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and is commemorated with a star on the Wall of Honor at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

... In 1983, Buckley succeeded Ken Haas as the Beirut Station Chief/Political Officer at the U.S. Embassy, but was kidnapped by the Islamist group Hezbollah on March 16, 1984. Hezbollah was closely allied to Iran.

... On October 4, 1985, Islamic Jihad announced that it had executed William Buckley. Former American hostages revealed that Buckley actually died of a heart attack brought on by torture on June 3, 1985.[4]. However, Buckley's remains were not recovered until 1991, when they were found in a plastic sack on the side of the road to the Beirut airport.[5] His body was returned to the United States on December 28, 1991, and he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.[1]

In 1983 Buckley became CIA station chief in Beirut. On 16th March,1984, Buckley was kidnapped by the Hezbollah, a fundamentalist Shiite group with strong links to the Khomeini regime. Buckley was tortured and it was soon discovered that he was a senior CIA officer. Buckley eventually signed a 400 page statement detailing his activities in the CIA. He was also videotaped making this confession.

THE ENEMY HAS BEEN DOING IT TO OUR GUYS FOR 40 YEARS.

SO YOU CAN'T SAY "IF WE DO IO, THEN THEY WILL."

AND THE BUCKLEY CASE PROVES IT CAN BE EFFECTIVE IN GETTING TRUTHFUL INFORMATION.

WE SHOULDN'T TORTURE ANY UNIFORMED COMBATANT FROM A NATION WHO IS A SIGNATORY TO GENEVA TREATY.

EVERYONE ELSE SHOULD BE FAIR GAME FOR ANY TREATMENT WE DEEM NECESSARY.

AND WE SHOULD MAKE THAT KNOWN.

THE BEST DEFENSE IS A STRONG OFFENSE. EVEN IF IT OFFENDS SOME. OFFENDING THE ENEMY IS NO SIN.

Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, believes Washington has become increasingly erratic and unfair in its treatment of the banks over the last few months, and he now has some regrets about participating in the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

“F.D.I.C. is going to cost us a lot of money. TARP cost us a lot of money. This bank tax, my first reaction was, ‘That will cost us a lot of money,’” Mr. Dimon said Thursday at the bank’s annual Investor Day conference in New York. “I think we are getting into the capricious, arbitrary and punitive behavior.”

... Mr. Dimon has expressed some of these complaints before. During JPMorgan’s earnings conference call in January, he said it was unfair that the big banks would be the only ones forced to pay the Obama administration’s proposed bank tax to ensure that all the TARP money is repaid.

IT'S ABOUT TIME THEY FOUGHT BACK.

THE BANKS SHOULDN'T HAVE EVER ALLOWED THEMSELVES TO BE FORCED INTO MAKING BAD MORTGAGES TO UNQUALIFIED BORROWERS.

THE WHOLE DANG HOUSING BUBBLE WAS CAUSED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FORCING BANKS TO MAKE BAD LOANS,

THEN USING FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC TO REPACKAGE THEM - MAKING DERIVATIVES -

WITH A TACIT FEDERAL GUARANTEE.

INVESTMENT BANKERS WHO BOUGHT THESE DERIVATIVES BOUGHT THEM IN GOOD FAITH AND THEIR SUPPOSED "GREED" CAME AT THE END OF THE PIPELINE THAT LIBERALS BUILT.

Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency, insists that the striking similarity between MDA's website logo and Obama's campaign logo is just coincidence. He says the MDA logo was created for a recruiting campaign that preceded the 2008 election, which is confirmed by an October 2008 recruiting ad in MIT's campus newspaper. There it is on page 17 (large PDF warning), MDA's Obama-esque configuration of circles and crescents, complete with waves of grain:

The MIT ad means that the MDA logo is not a product of the Obama administration, but that doesn't mean it is not an offshoot of the Obama logo, which was introduced in early 2007. Unless the MDA recruiting campaign goes back that far, the MDA design could still have been influenced by Obama's design, or directly created by an Obama supporter. It's hard to believe it wasn't, but unless Obama's own people had some inside influence with the logo designers at TMPgovernment (not an impossibility) any intentional similarity would be a product of the designers' own initiative, not the Obama team's orchestration. Big deal. Obama can't help what his supporters do.

More worrisome is how a branch of the Department of Defense can overlook the overt Islamic symbol shape

The classic Islamic crescent (based on later flags of the Ottoman Empire) is defined by its circular inner and outer arcs. Contrast this to a crescent moon, which has an elliptical inner arc (when projected onto two dimensions). Several jihadist organizations use a full circle-in-circle crescent in their insignias, just like the one in the MDA logo.

and by the Muslim American Society, which was created by the Muslim Brotherhood (the parent organization of al Qaeda) in 1928:

As with the Missile Defense Agency logo, the inner circle in the MAS logo represents the earth. The 360° green crescent formed by the space between the two circles represents Islamic domination of the planet. This Islamic triumphalism is also the depicted on the Hezbollah flag, which uses 2/3rds of of the outline of a globe to create an Islamic crescent covering the more typical 2/3rds of a circle of arc:

It is unclear what the blue crescent formed by the inner and outer circles of the MDA logo is supposed to represent. It's not a missile trajectory (that's in red), and if it were supposed to be atmosphere, the thicker side would be the near side (as defined by the missile trajectory). All we are left with is the geometric similarity to the jihadi insignias.

Were concerns about the Islamic shaped crescent suppressed as anti-Muslim bigotry?

Friend vs. foe identification is as basic as military fundamentals get. Every soldier is drilled on every available identifier, over and over and over, and it never stops. It is simply inconceivable that our Defense Department could employ an Islamic symbol shape--in the midst of a war with Islamic terrorists--and not be aware of it.

The question is how the inevitable recognition of the Islamic symbol shapes got suppressed. Did those who recognized the Islamic crescent self-censor from fear of being branded an anti-Muslim bigot, like those who remained quiet about Nidal Hasan's violent Islamic diatribes (enabling the Fort Hood massacre), or did they raise their concerns and were they attacked, as Tom Burnett Sr. has been attacked ("Efforts to sully Flight 93 memorial deserve scorn") for protesting the Park Service's decision to plant a giant Islamic-shaped crescent atop his son's grave?

The difference is that Flight 93 Memorial architect Paul Murdoch saturated his Crescent of Embrace design with endless proof of terrorist memorializing intent. Not only does the giant crescent point to Mecca (making it a mihrab, the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built) but the design is replete with elaborately repeated Mecca orientations.

If only I would stop exposing the Mecca-oriented crescents, a silly Irishman recently advised, nobody would know and no harm would be done. It is only because I am doing the bad man's work for him, you see, that the opportunity for mischief arises.

This is exactly what our foolish elites say about Islam. Don't point out that Osama Bin Laden is a perfectly orthodox Wahabbist or you will just convince the other orthodox Muslims that they should follow him, as if they don't already know their own religion. We tried this strategy at Fort Hood and we all know the result. We have been squeezing our eyes wide shut for forty years, until we are on the verge of allowing Islamic suicide bombers to get nuclear weapons.

What graver symbol of our peril could there be than a DOD logo with the exact peculiar geometry of a jihadist insignia?

FOIA request has been submitted

I asked the Missile Defense Agency's FOIA officers to please send me whatever records they have--documents, emails, minutes--where the suitability of the crescent logo is discussed.

Hopefully somebody committed their qualms to writing, spurring enough cloud-chamber reactions to reveal the mechanisms of suppression that set those qualms aside. Very likely there was no opposition, only self-censorship, and it will turn out that an independent jihadi was left free to simply insert an Islamist logo onto the MDA website, just like the sound engineer who inserted "Islam is the light" onto the voice track of Mattel's Cuddle & Coo doll.

Alternatively, the TPMgovernment designer who composed the MDA's crescent logo could be completely ignorant and have no idea he was channeling Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. After all, it is the military that is supposed to recognize the insignias of the enemy. If our military is intentionally asleep at the wheel, don't expect an artsy civilian to do their oversight for them.

If the TPMgovernment designer was/is a simple lefty Obamaton (pretty common amongst artsy civilians) he/she/it might have been aware of the Islamic symbol shape, yet and thought it added a nice touch of multi-culturalism. (I have asked for the designers names too. Pretty sure I won't get them, but if there are any TPMgovernment employees or ex-employees who know how this happened, please speak up.)

If Obama's people did somehow exercise direct influence, then the Washington Times criticism applies. Recasting the symbols of the United States to reflect Obama's personal ensign is, well, call it the ultimate rejection of bipartisanship, but Obama is known to have gone down this road before. Remember this Obamanation:

As for what the MDA needs to do, it really doesn't matter whether their website logo was done by a free-lance Obamaton, a free-lance jihadi, by direct influence, or by simple accident. Symbols of the American military must not share the peculiar geometry of the symbols of our terror war enemies. Ask any PFC. The MDA logo needs to be changed.

From this source, in an article entitled " Muslims Exempt from Death Penalty in U.S.?":

For the first time, the idea that all are not equal before the law, but that some are more equal than others, has been given credence by an American court. Despite the County Attorney’s Office denials, a precedent has been set that Islamic pressure groups are certain to exploit to the hilt.

AMMAN: A Jordanian on death row for the murder of his married sister who used her mobile too often in an apparent “honour killing” has had his term commuted to 10 years in jail, a judicial official said yesterday.

“The man confessed to the crime after he was arrested shortly after the crime,” the official said.

The defendant said “he stabbed his sister, who was in her 40s, in the stomach, back and chest because she frequently talked over her mobile phone and allegedly had suspicious behaviour,” said the official, on condition of anonymity.

The man, 21, was charged with premeditated murder, which is punishable by death, but the court reduced the sentence on Sunday after the family dropped all legal claims against him, the official said.

He said the 2007 killing took place in Jabal Akhdar, near the centre of Amman.

The Met Office has called for a re-examination of more than 150 years of global temperature records as part of a new comprehensive approach for analysing temperature data...

...The call for a reassessment of 150 years of data, which is expected to take three years, will be seen by many as an attempt to get beyond the hacked emails scandal that happened recently at the University of East Anglia.

... This effort will ensure that the datasets are completely robust and that all methods are transparent," the document says.

An Ipsos Mori survey published this week showed that the proportion of adults who believe climate change is "definitely" a reality dropped by 30% during the past year, from 44% to 31%.

BWAHAHAHAHA!

I GUESS ALL THAT TEMPERATURE STUFF WASN'T NEARLY AS SETTLED AS THEY MISLED SO MANY TO BELIEVE!

WE GOT THEM ON THE RUN!

THEY'RE ON DEFENSE!

AND AS LONG AS THEY'RE ON DEFNSE, THEY WON'T BE ABLE TO ENACT THEYRE SOCIALIST AGENDA!

Russians may have scoffed at what US President Barack Obama called “snowmageddon” earlier this month on his country”s east coast, but now Muscovites have been stunned by a snow fall that has broken their own 1966 record.

Four days of blizzards dumped 67 centimeters (26 inches) across the Russian capital by Tuesday, breaking the Feb record of 64 cm experienced at the height of the Cold War 44 years ago, and much more is expected this week, the Moscow weather bureau said.

(IsraelNN.com) In the last 10 years, London has become the primary worldwide bastion of Hamas, according to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, a non-governmental organization dedicated to the memory of fallen Israeli Intelligence Community agents.

[...]

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center report shows that these incidents are not accidental, but rather concentrated political activity by the Hamas terror organization. The findings say London has become the epicenter of Hamas' political, legal, and propaganda campaigns in Europe. Hamas operatives note that they have been particularly successful, with the assistance of the Muslim Brotherhood, in controlling the discourse regarding Arabs in Israel, and initiating widespread anti-Zionism throughout the country.

There's more at the link telling why the blighty is quite the comfy space for them. And it does not surprise one bit. Britain has long proven itself weak in knees to terrorism and antisemitism, and it's not a country worth visiting.

ACCORDING TO "A team of researchers under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization has published a new review paper in Nature Geoscience" THERE HAS BEEN NO DISCERNIBLE CHANGE IN THE RATE OR INTENSITY OF CYCLONES OR HURRICANES.

Cuban political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo has died in hospital after 85 days on hunger strike.

Mr Zapata, 42, had been transferred to a Havana hospital from a smaller clinic in the central province of Camaguey after his condition worsened on Monday.

Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience after his arrest in March 2003 in a crackdown on opposition groups.

He had been refusing food in protest at jail conditions.

Mr Zapata, whose family announced last week that he was seriously ill, died on Tuesday in Havana's Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital.

His death marks the first time in nearly 40 years a Cuban activist starved himself to death to protest against government abuses.

The last political prisoner to die on hunger strike in Cuba was Pedro Luis Boitel, a poet and student leader, in 1972.

'Better future'

Mr Zapata's mother, Reina Luisa Tamayo, told the Miami newspaper El Nuevo Herald by telephone that her son had been "murdered" by Cuba's authorities.

"They managed to do what they wanted," she said. "They ended the life of a fighter for human rights.''

Laura Pollan, a dissident from the group known as Ladies in White, told the BBC: "He wasn't a murderer. He wasn't a thief. He wasn't a rapist. He was simply a young man who wanted a better future for Cuba."

Mr Zapata was among a group of some 75 dissidents jailed by the authorities in 2003. He was initially sentenced to three years in prison, but this was increased to 25 years in subsequent trials.

CUBA IS A TYRANNICAL TOTALITARIAN STATE.

CASTRO AND HIS BROTHER AND THEIR COMRADES MUST BE DEPOSED.

CUBA DESREVES TO BE FREE, AND OBAMA SHOULD BE DOING MORE TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN ASAP.

The nation’s main counterterrorism center, created in response to the intelligence failures in the years before Sept. 11, is struggling because of flawed staffing and internal cultural clashes, according to a new study financed by Congress.

The result, the study concludes, is a lack of coordination and communication among the agencies that are supposed to take the lead in planning the fight against terrorism, including the C.I.A. and the State Department. The findings come just weeks after the National Counterterrorism Center was criticized for missing clear warning signs that a 23-year-old Nigerian man was said to be plotting to blow up a Detroit-bound commercial airliner on Dec. 25.

I BLAME OBAMA, BRENNAN AND LEITER. AND HOLDER AND NAPOLITANO. AND JONES.